Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
          --Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

I remember where I got the firecrackers I remember. From the Hoges, who got them when they went to visit their grandparents in Pittsburgh (they also said they got them in Chinatown, which the Chinese characters on the stickers on the thrilling purple or green tissue-paper wrappers made plausible); and then later from Fred Cohen, who had access to M-80s, cherry bombs, and even a Roman Candle. I was very cautious with them, since there was always a Fourth of July story on the radio about a kid who'd blown off his hand with a cherry bomb. Fred would twine two or three together. I remember setting an M-80 off with Fred in Central Park. We climbed some granite and put it in a cleft in the rock, lit it and ran off. It was really loud.

Fred brought a Roman candle to our house for the weekend (I would have been twelve). I was very anxious about setting it off, since it was so much bigger than anything else I'd tried. I was afraid it would be loud and obvious and dangerous -- that we'd be caught or hurt. He said it was no big deal, just a series of eight or ten bright fire- balls that flew into the air, not so high as to attract much attention. I kept temporizing and we ended up not setting it off that weekend (relief!). Then a few weeks later, I tried setting it off myself, but it was a dud.

I remember that fireworks were the kinds of things you read about in school books about Americanana, but that I'd never seen them in reality, in New York. They were like farming or Little League -- things done in most of the rest of the country, but not where I lived. I think my parents may have gone once or twice in Stormville. But they weren't a city thing -- not until I was an adult. I think I may have first seen them in college.

posted by william 9:01 AM
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